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I’m a cooking-show junkie, and one of my favorites is Beat Bobby Flay. Recently, I watched an episode where Bobby competed against Gail Arnold, one of his early mentors who is also Steven Spielberg’s personal chef! This particular episode was particularly epic, since the celebrity judges were none other than Neil Patrick Harris (NPH!) and Ina Garten!

But back to the shawarma, I had never heard of shawarma before but my impression of it based upon things I am familiar with is that it’s a Middle Eastern/Israeli dish that’s similar to a gyro or doner kebab. Chef Arnold was doing a marinade/spice mixture using yogurt which really got my attention. I took a few notes, which I will often do while I watch shows like this, and set off to scour Pinterest for recipe ideas. I ended up finding several & putting my own spin based on what I had seen Chef Arnold do and what my flavor preferences are.

I guess you could say we were “eating like the Spielbergs” the night we had this. Or like Iron Man, since my son informed me that he had heard of shawarma because it was mentioned by Tony Stark in the new Captain America movie. Either way, I marinated a ton of chicken & we were eating shawarma for days. I may have even eaten shawarma with a fried egg in it for breakfast one day… #putaneggonit

Stark’s Shawarma

Ingredients:

12 skinless, boneless chicken thighs

2 C plain Greek yogurt

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp ground clove

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp cinnamon

Kosher salt & black pepper to taste

juice of 1 lemon

dried chili flakes (optional)

For wraps:

diced cucumbers

diced tomatoes

sliced red onion

hummus

pita bread

Instructions:

In a large mixing bowl, combine yogurt, spices, and lemon juice. Mix well.

Put the chicken thighs into 2 1-gallon plastic bags, 6 in each.

Put 1C of marinade into each bag. Seal bag & shake it around, making sure to massage the marinade into all the chicken.

Marinate 1-4 hours in the refrigerator, or ideally, overnight.

Preheat oven to 425F.

Spread chicken thighs in a single layer in a shallow baking dish. Season with Kosher salt & pepper, and chili flakes, if desired.

Bake for 45 mins. For extra crispness, put on the broiler for the last 5 mins of cook time.

When cooled slightly, slice the chicken into strips.

Strips of roasted chicken can be rolled into a wrap with desired toppings, or added to a salad. I set up a shawarma bar, so that each person could add the toppings of their choice according to their own tastes.

I made this delicious mess to go with this year’s Easter dinner which also included spareribs, asparagus, & beets. I was aiming for something creamy & cheesy, & I added in a little black garlic for good measure.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 pounds red potatoes

2 cloves black garlic, smashed

1 1/2 C heavy cream

1 cup whole milk

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Kosher salt & ground pepper (to taste)

1 C smoked Gouda cheese, grated

1 C Colby cheese, grated

1/2 C sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375F.

Peel potatoes, and place in a bowl of water to prevent discoloring.

Spray inside of a 2 qt casserole dish with cooking spray.

Heat cream, milk, nutmeg, black garlic, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat until bubbles form around edge. Season with pepper, if desired. Remove from heat.

Using a mandolin, slice potatoes 1/8 inch thick. Watch your fingers with the mandolin! They are a great invention, but dangerous!

Layer potato slices into your casserole dish artfully. I got excellent results by layering some potatoes, then some grated cheese, then potatoes again. Save some cheese to sprinkle over the top.

Pour warm cream mixture over top. Gently push potatoes down, to make sure they are all covered with the cream mixture.

Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake (with a baking sheet placed on the rack below to catch drips) until potatoes are fork tender and top is bubbling and brown, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cover with foil if cheese begins to brown too much.

Awhile back, completely by accident, I stumbled upon the awesomeness that is fun, flavored milks by Shatto Milk Company. A quick flashback, in case you have forgotten… I could hardly contain myself when I found out the awesomeness was produced in Osborn, MO. A hop, skip, and a jump (OK, a 45 minute drive) from my casa. Trust me when I tell you I am not unfamiliar with Osborn… I let my excitement out all over social media, including this Instagram post (By the way, are you following me on Instagram yet?): The folks over at Shatto were kind enough to invite me out to check out the farm & meet the cows. Really, they had me at cheese… and flavored milks… and ice cream. As soon as I had a day available, I made the trip.

It was a lovely summer’s day in Missouri (Not really, it was pouring rain.) when I arrived at Shatto. Their gift shop was absolutely FILLED to capacity with people. Young moms and preschoolers, a tour bus full of seniors, joined my teens & I waiting for the tour to start. Because of health codes, everyone was furnished with a paper hat to wear during the tour. My teens were thrilled (sarcasm), the little kids kept taking theirs off only to have their moms plop them back on their heads, and one older lady put hers on completely upside-down (how?) which greatly amused me.

There were at least 4 tours going on simultaneously, and with great precision, each group set off in a different direction to begin the tour. Our group started with milk-tasting, led by owner Leroy Shatto. As a professional wino, a small part of me was confused by milk-tasting. Where was the dump bucket? Was I supposed to spit? Wait, just drink the milk? I kid, I kid… We tasted 8 different milks (banana, strawberry, chocolate, cotton candy, root beer, cookies & cream, coffee, and the new birthday cake flavor) while Leroy gave us some history of the family and the farm. I think root beer is still my favorite, followed by coffee. The birthday cake was delicious; it tasted just like cake batter. I’m kind of bummed that I missed out on the limited release of apple pie flavor, but maybe I’ll catch it again the next time they do it.

Owner Leroy Shatto telling us about the farm’s history in front of the milk-tasting set up.

We walked past a cheese-making/processing room where you could look in and see some folks working on the various stages of cheese-making including the production of those famous Shatto cheese curds! Maybe in the future they can offer a “cheese geeks” tour. I know the littler visitors might not be into it, but I nerd out over cheese and would’ve loved to hear more about it.

Then we checked out a vintage (1950s) milk truck that the family found, restored, and decked out to rep the farm in parades and such. A pretty cool feature is that you can stand up and drive it. A guy on my tour made an amusing “milkman’s kid” joke, which I had to explain to my kids later. Thanks dude. 🙂

Checking out the bottling line and the various holding tanks was next. We also learned a little about homogenizing and pasteurizing milk. Here I learned 3 very important things: 1) milk can get from the cow to the store in fewer than 12 hours 2) a milk-bottling line is very similar to a wine-bottling line, and most importantly, 3) Shatto makes pumpkin spice eggnog in the fall!

Here’s a shot of some chocolate milk getting bottled.

Next, they brought us out to meet the calves and if we wanted to, milk a cow. The calves were very cute, but were unfortuntely upstaged by a litter of adorable barn kittens. Amazingly, no kittens found their way into my purse, and my cow-fearing daughter (When she was a toddler she had an unfortunate incident in which she was head-butted by a cow.) actually enjoyed petting one of the calves and letting it lick her.

Kacie the calf meets my little bovinophobe.

A bovine friend waiting for her turn in the milking parlor…

After visiting with the calves, cows, and barn cats, we headed over to the milking parlor (Sounds so fancy!). Here, they can milk about a dozen cows at once. According to Shatto, an average cow produces 6-7 gallons of milk per day. The staff discussed sanitizing the cow’s udders and let us all stick our thumbs in the milking apparatus. It felt similar to a blood pressure cuff at the doctor’s office.

Here are the ladies coming into the milking parlor & getting hooked up.

This guy was pretty amused with everyone sticking their thumbs in the milking apparatus…

The tour ended (of course) back in the gift shop where we were treated to some tasty flavored butters (honey butter and garlic butter) and cheese curds (the plain ones). The seniors did some shopping and got back on their tour bus, and the little kids begged their parents for cowbells. Thank goodness my kids are big! I picked up some birthday cake milk for the kids, some “Dill-licious” cheese curds (that barely made it home), and Lily, a hard cheese a bit milder than Parmesan that I have already used in several dishes (Stay tuned!).

I think the sign on these needs to read “MORE COWBELL!”

Thanks for a fun summer field trip Shatto, I’m excited to see what outside-the-box stuff you come up with in the future!

Recently, I stumbled upon these flavored milks in my local supermarket. They’re from a local dairy: Shatto Milk Company is about 45 minutes from my house. For some reason I have not visited yet (it might have something to do with the fact that there’s a winery close by & I usually end up there) but fear not, the field trip is in the works! There are a variety of flavors available, besides Root Beer & Cotton Candy that you will see here; including Orange Cream, Banana, Strawberry, Coffee, and Cookies & Cream. Can’t wait to make this trip & check it out!